"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis

Saturday, July 02, 2016

Making The House Better Has Nothing To Do With The DCCC

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Last month Jason the Greek, a Kos diarist, talked about six little-noticed, underfunded but exceptionally important House candidates. The Democrats would need to net 30 seats to evict Ryan from the Speaker's job and take control of the House. Jason seems more optimistic than I do that this is possible. I contend that because of endemic DCCC incompetence and corruption-- manifested, for example, by suicidally horrendous candidate recruitment-- even the anti-Trump tsunami I'm expecting won't do the trick for the Dems. The Dems currently have 34 Red to Blue candidates, most of them truly horrible and unworthy of votes-- some of the worst being Trump-like Randy Perkins (FL), defeated Texas Blue Dog Pete Gallego, Utah Blue Dog Doug Owens, long-time Iowa Republican Monica Vernon, Wall Street shill Josh Gottheimer (NJ), Republican Tom O'Halleran (AZ), Val Demings (FL), Lon Johnson (MI), Republican Mike Derrick, Republican Charlie Crist (FL), and defeated New Dem/Wall Street whore Brad Schneider (IL). Progressives like Zephyr Teachout (NY), Tom Wakely (TX), and Mary Ellen Balchunis (PA) have not been embraced by the DCCC.

Jason contends that "because Democrats need 30 seats to gain control, it’s way too dangerous to plan to compete for just 40 seats. We need to expand the map to at least another 20 seats so that we can be playing for 60 seats, which would require taking half rather three-quarters of competitive seats. He's not crying about the conservatives who run the DCCC Red to Blue program; he's crying about the equally conservative, like-minded gentleman who run something I'd never heard of, "the Kos Elections House Board." I can only imagine. Jason decided to "focus on six such races that should be upgraded for more resources and effort. In particular, I am calling for these races to be added to the Kos Elections House Board. These six should make the board based on the strength of their campaigns or because the candidates are previous officeholders. We in the progressive community should be assuming we can ride the wave of Republican division and discontent to successes than we had not anticipated. It starts with these six races ordered by my preferences." His six picks:

Blue America has endorsed both Paul Clements and DuWayne Gregory and both have a good chance to displace powerful Republican incumbents, respectively, Fred Upton and Peter King. Even with his own criteria, Jason ought to have included Mary Ellen Balchunis in the Philly suburbs (PA-07). I'd also take a roll of the dice on Alina Valdes' campaign in South Florida (FL-25) for the seat held by Mario Diaz-Balart. There are just 2 Blue America candidates that the DCCC has added to their Red to Blue page so far, Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01) and Ruben Kihuen (NV-04). If you want to help any of the progressives running for House seats, please consider making a contribution by tapping on the thermometer below: